Inside and Out Tag

Inside and Out Tag

MathomBooks created a wonderful reading tag using Inside and Out as an acronym that most of the book vlogging world is responding to. I have yet to begin vlogging, so I will be responding via my blog. I would like to tag Bryan Sherwood and Doug Phelp's daughter, Rachel to complete and post this reading tag.

Inside and Out Reading Tag

1. The inside flap of the book cover – too much information or not enough information?

The books that I tend to select are generally recommended by friends or by reading communities of which I am a member, so I generally do not read the flap for a synopsis of the book. However, if I am browsing in a bookstore or library, I find the flap to be most helpful in helping to determine if it is a book I would enjoy.

2. What format of new books do you prefer – hardcover, paperback, eBook, or audio book?

Several years ago, I purchased an iPad and was delighted to be able to purchase eBooks instantaneously and to carry around my library with me on my tablet. But, within the last few months, I have made a swing back to tangible books. I just love the feel and heft of a harbcover and the tactile sense of turning pages. I have always had an aversion to audio books (I do not consider it reading) and paperbacks do not provide me with the longevity I wish for my library.

3. Scribble while you read? Do you like to take notes, scribble in the margins, underline, and make annotations as you read; or, do you keep your books clean, clean, clean?

Rather than mark up a book, I prefer to write quotations from the book, as well as thoughts on my reading, in a journal. I like to keep my books as pristine as possible.

4. In your best reading voice, read your favorite opening line from a book. (Obviously, I cannot read it, so I will quote it, instead)

The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, has one amazing prologue that draws you into an awesome read!

It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence in three parts.

The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn's sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

Inside the Waystone a pair of men huddled at one corner of the bar. They drank with quiet determination, avoiding serious discussions of troubling news. In doing this they added a small, sullen silence to the larger, hollow one. It made an alloy of sorts, a counterpoint.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the wooden floor underfoot and in the rough, splintering barrels behind the bar. It was in the weight of the black stone hearth that held the heat of a long dead fire. It was in the slow back and forth of a white linen cloth rubbing along the grain of the bar. And it was in the hands of the man who stood there, polishing a stretch of mahogany that already gleamed in the lamplight.

The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes from knowing many things.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn's ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

5. When deciding upon a book to read, does it matter to you if the author is male, female, or sex unknown?

Certainly not; Lewis Carroll wrote a fanciful tale of Alice and J.K. Rowling created the wonderful world of Harry. The sex of the author has no bearing upon what I select to read.

6. Be honest – ever read ahead?

Most definitely not; this would spoil the story.

7. Organized bookshelves of outrageous bookshelves?

Not public library organized…..but organized.

8. Your under oath – have you ever chosen to read a book based solely upon the book's cover?

Not really. The book cover may pique my interest, but it is the synopsis of the book or a recommendation from a friend or blog that propels me to read the book.

9. Take it out or keep it in? In other words, when reading, are the the type of person who likes to read outdoors or do you like to be inside when you read?

I read everywhere….in the car, on my lunch break, on the back porch….but my preferred reading spot is in my recliner in my home.